Chancellor's Parashah Commentary

In his early Zionist tract, Rome and Jerusalem (1862), Moses
Hess declaimed "that the Jewish religion is, above all, Jewish
patriotism." "Everything that reminds the pious Jew of
Palestine is as dear to him as the sacred relics of his
ancestral house." By way of example, Hess recalled the
intensity with which his learned and saintly grandfather
prepared each year for the fast day of Tisha b'Av. As he read
to his grandchildren tales of Jewish suffering in exile, "tears
fell upon the snow-white beard of the stern old man (trans. By
Meyer Waxman, N.Y., 1945, pp. 56-58)."

Hess, an important theoretician of European socialism, had
abandoned that cause when he found it to be no less infected
with antisemitism than the forces of the conservative right.
The avowedly nationalistic History of the Jews by Heinrich
Graetz helped him adopt a view of Judaism bitterly at odds with
that of contemporary Reform thinkers, detoxified of all
particularistic strains. In the process, Hess celebrated the
land-centered peoplehood of a homeless nation as nurtured by
traditional Judaism.

This week's parasha, rife with admonitory rhetoric, provides a
striking and, I dare say, unexpected illustration of Hess's
deep insight. The Jewish practice of grace after meals (Birkat
Ha-mazon) is anchored in the following well-known verse: "When
you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for
the good land which He has given you (Deuteronomy 8:10)." And
indeed, that verse is incorporated toward the end of the second
blessing of the grace. The connection between text and ritual
seems straightforward. Maimonides in his code adds that the
force of the word "vesavata - and you are satisfied," is to
oblige us to thank God only when we are no longer hungry. It
was the Rabbis who insisted on grace even after a morsel of
food as small as an olive (Mishne Torah, Berakhot 1:1).

The scriptural context for this commandment is a paean to the
richness of the land about to be conquered by the Israelites.
Canaan abounded with water, minerals
and diverse crops. To acknowledge dependence on God in
acts of thanksgiving would inculcate a state of mind that would
never abuse prosperity. Yet the Rabbis universalized the duty
to "bench" after meals. It was not restricted
only to those living in the land of Israel, as was
the commandment not to work the soil during the sabbatical year.
All Jews, wherever they might reside, were expected to utter
gratitude for the bounty of the earth.

However, the attachment to the land of Israel was never severed
from the prayer itself. On the contrary, the four berakhot of
the grace brim with national sentiment. As conceived by the
Rabbis, Birkat Ha-mazon encapsulates much of early Jewish
history into a reaffirmation of the inviolability of the land.
Having finished a meal, Jews do not sing of the wonders of
nature but rather the sanctity of their ancient homeland. Hess
had it right: Judaism qua religion perpetuates a sense of
nationhood.

According to Rav Nahman, who lived in early fourth century
Babylonia, the four basic paragraphs of the grace are a
composite that reflect four different periods. The first
(ha-zan) was authored by Moses to voice thanksgiving for the
manna in the wilderness. The second (al-haaretz ve-al
ha-mazon), by Joshua to commemorate the conquest of the land.
The third (bone berahamav Yerushalyim), by David and Solomon to
celebrate the construction of Jerusalem and the Temple. And
the fourth (ha-tov ve-ha-meitiv), by the Rabbis to recall the
failed Bar Kochba rebellion (B.T. Berakhot 48b). In the spirit
of this historical conception is surely the addition of Psalm
126 on Shabbat and festivals which sings of national
restoration. Thus faced with an ever wider Diaspora, the
Rabbis forged lifelines of ritual to keep center and periphery
united.

But this religious drumbeat of national yearning did not pave
the way for political Zionism at the end of the 19th century.
The astonishing fact is that Eastern European Orthodoxy in both
its Hasidic (Rabbi Shalom Dov Beer Schneerson of Lubavitch) and
its Mitnagdic (Rabbi Hayim Soloveitchik of Volozhin) garb
bitterly condemned it. What turned them into inveterate
opponents of Zionism was not the highly assimilated lifestyle
of leaders like Herzl and Nordau, but the messianic views of
traditional Judaism. Only the messiah would some day reverse
the state of chronic Jewish exile with a swift and final
restoration to the ancient homeland.

The natural patriotism of the religious Jew of which Hess spoke
came with an incapacitating degree of political passivity. In
the wake of three catastrophic rebellions against the Roman
Empire, the Rabbis had adjured Jews not to take to the
barricades, nor to try to throw off the yoke of gentile rule,
nor to speculate on when the messiah might come. In return,
God would ensure that the nations of the world not oppress
their Jewish subjects too harshly (B.T. Ketubot 111a).
According to the terms of this covenant, collective repentance
alone might hasten the coming of the messiah. To the Orthodox,
political Zionism with its embrace of human agency and
incremental progress appeared as an arrogant repudiation of a
cardinal plank of Judaism.

Moreover, it is precisely this intense activism which
underscores the modernity of political Zionism. As the skies
darkened for European Jewry with the Dreyfus Affair in France
and ever more pogroms in Russia and wholly antisemitic
political parties in Germany and Austria, young
post-emancipated Jews gave vent to their anger and angst by
espousing Jewish nationalism. Without this double
estrangement — from Judaism and emancipation — the
traditional passivity would never have been shattered.

But not vanquished! Two years ago, after Israeli independence
day, I entered the ultra-Orthodox quarter of Meah Shearim in
Jerusalem to buy some books. On the walls I was greeted with
Hebrew placards that could have hung 150 years ago in the Pale
of Settlement, where the vast majority of Russia's Jews were
forced to live: "To be drafted into the army is, according to
our holy Torah, a very grave sin." I prefer to believe that
God helps those who help themselves. And the history of modern
Israel surely supports that view.